A question about pricing and sales

Why is pricing for windows version raised to 49$???
First i saw price 29,99$ and i waited for more occasion " />
Then it changed to 39,95$ and i hoped for dropping back to 29,99$.
And now i see even more for the price...
There is no reason for such a high price, in my opinion
Now i`m definitely not buying this program

~Bruder

Comments

We're sorry you feel this way, Bruder. Clearly, each of us has to decide whether any given tool provides sufficient benefit to justify the price.

1Password isn't just a "port" of an existing product to another platform. Just like the 1Password apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7, 1Password for Windows is a completely different program, developed from the ground up for use on a completely different platform.

1Password for each platform must be designed, developed, tested, documented, and supported, and that costs money. We like to think we've set a reasonable price on each of them, but we can't satisfy everyone, of course...at least, not without going out of business.

Yes, if you're holding out for a special price, it can be useful to watch the store and our blog, where we often announce such things. You can also subscribe to our newsletter. We promise not to spam you or flood your inbox!

I picked up my 1P/Win family license when the product was emerging from beta, and got a beta-tester rebate to boot. My life is on 1P/Mac, and being able to access and edit my keychain when I am stuck using Windows is well worth the price I paid.

That said, $50 strikes me as a pretty hefty price for a product that I still consider to be half-baked. I sat down with my mother-in-law yesterday to start teaching her the ropes (we picked up a copy for her during Agile's Thanksgiving promotion), and was dismayed to discover that really basic features like File > Print and Edit > Duplicate still haven't been implemented. This is on top of my discovery a couple of weeks ago that the only items that 1P/Win can import from a 1PIF are logins.

Is 1P/Mac worth $50? It is to me, and I still recommend it to friends without reservation, although I imagine that I would also check out cheaper alternatives if I were looking for a password manager for the first time. But 1P/Win has a long way to go before it can be compared to 1P/Mac. I am confident that 1P/Win will continue to improve, but for the time being I really would have a hard time recommending that someone shell out $50 for the program unless it is would be serving as an adjunct to 1P on some other platform.

I wouldn't describe 1Password for Windows as "half baked," but I can't disagree with any of your factual points.

In the end, it is up to each of us as consumers to determine whether any item is worth the price asked. We sincerely thank you for using 1Password and hope it continues to provide a good return on your investment.

I assume that the security in 1P/Win is "fully baked." And obviously value is in the eye of the beholder. But given the limitations of 1P/Win compared to those of its older brother, which are hinted at in a FAQ entry but nowhere detailed, I find the equal pricing of the two products difficult to understand. I suppose that one could even argue that the pricing is deceptive, but given Agile's 30-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee policies I don't think that such an accusation holds water.

Incidentally, the FAQ states that 1P/Win was based on 1Password 2 but already sports a feature set that goes well beyond that product. In some respects yes, but not in all. For one thing, I'm given to understand that 1P/Win will never get File > Export > Palm/Treo, a feature that remains of high importance to me.

But my "half-baked" assessment really has nothing to do with feature parity. I don't know when work was started on 1P/Win, but the first public beta, build #36, was released in April of 2010, about six months after the introduction of the .agilekeychain in 1Password 2.9. I just fired up the copy of 1Password 2.5.8 that I picked up in a MacHeist bundle back in January of 2008, which is just shy of four years ago. A quick perusal of the menus reveals File > Print and Edit > Duplicate. You were moderating the 1P/Win beta forums, so you know that thesedeficiencies were flagged by 1P/Win beta testers months before the product's commercial release. Agile has been selling 1P/Win for over a year now, and it still loses out to 1Password 2.5.8 in ease-of-use.

Does that make 1P/Win a bad product? No. But is it a $50 product? Well, that's for the market to say, not me.

It is the same security, exactly, as is used in 1Password for Mac. Note that their data format is identical.

...given the limitations of 1P/Win compared to those of its older brother...I find the equal pricing of the two products difficult to understand.

The price is based on the cost of developing, testing, documenting, supporting, and maintaining the products. It's easy to understand that all the people involved cost pretty much the same, regardless of the platform for which the product is intended.

I suppose that one could even argue that the pricing is deceptive, but given Agile's 30-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee policies I don't think that such an accusation holds water.

One can argue anything, no matter how outrageous, unless one is concerned with being right. We believe our behavior—before, upon, and following a sale—proves we aren't even remotely deceptive. Phrasing an accusation in that way does make for amusing rhetoric, though.

Incidentally, the FAQ states that 1P/Win was based on 1Password 2 but already sports a feature set that goes well beyond that product. In some respects yes, but not in all.

The statement in the user's guide is that the design and features were based on 1Password 2, not that every feature of 1Password 2 had been (or would ever be) implemented in 1Password for Windows. For example, it currently seems unlikely that 1Password for Windows will include wi-fi sync'ing, though we understand that's a deal-breaker for some potential customers.

...I'm given to understand that 1P/Win will never get File &gt; Export &gt; Palm/Treo, a feature that remains of high importance to me.

I don't know what version of 1Password for Mac you're running, but there's no such command in my up-to-date installation on my Mac. I believe it's been gone for a rather long time.

But my "half-baked" assessment really has nothing to do with feature parity. I don't know when work was started on 1P/Win, but the first public beta, build #36, was released in April of 2010, about six months after the introduction of the .agilekeychain in 1Password 2.9. I just fired up the copy of 1Password 2.5.8 that I picked up in a MacHeist bundle back in January of 2008, which is just shy of four years ago. A quick perusal of the menus reveals File &gt; Print and Edit &gt; Duplicate. You were moderating the 1P/Win beta forums, so you know that thesedeficiencies were flagged by 1P/Win beta testers months before the product's commercial release. Agile has been selling 1P/Win for over a year now, and it still loses out to 1Password 2.5.8 in ease-of-use.

There are certainly lots of features still to be added, including many we haven't even thought of, yet. If only we could persuade the browser makers not to update their products for a few months, we might make a little more headway.

Does that make 1P/Win a bad product? No. But is it a $50 product? Well, that's for the market to say, not me.

The FAQ states that the design basis of 1P/Win was 1Password 2 rather than 1Password 3. My reference to Palm/Treo export was simply for the purpose of making the point that 1P/Win lacks some of the features of 1Password 2, and that so far as I know there is nothing in the 1P/Win user documentation that outlines the differences.

I just formally withdrew my May 21, 2010 feature request in the Windows beta forum for File > Export > Palm/Treo. There are far better uses for Agile's time and energy, and your observation that necessary work on browser extensions has slowed the progress of 1P/Win in other areas is undoubtedly well-taken. Palm export in 1P/Win would be nice, but it is very far from essential. That was my view in May of 2010, and it remains my view today.

1Password 3.6, which was released last June (well over a year after my post in the 1P/Win beta forum), dropped support for a great many things, most notably OS X 10.5 (the last version of OS X to support Palm Sync and PowerPC Macs). Unsurprisingly, Palm/Treo export was part of the jettisoned baggage. But Agile is still maintaining 1Password 3.5, and is committed to maintaining backward compatibility of the .agilekeychain for as long as practicable. You people rock. You are amazing. I am in awe. Seriously.

Nowadays I quit 1Password every now and then, launch ~/Applications/1Pold.app (aka 1Password 3.5.13), and export a .pdb to ~/Dropbox/1PasswordSync/. Meets my needs. I suspect that I will have moved on to iOS or Android long before updating 1Password.pdb becomes truly inconvenient.

My main concern back in May of 2010, as reflected in my feature request, was that the absence of Palm export in 1P/Win signaled that 1P/Palm would soon be abandoned. That fear was allayed long ago. And now, if you excuse me, I have to upgrade 1Pold.app to version 3.5.15.

—Ben F

p.s. Until 1P/Win's keychain import and keychain management capabilities are substantially improved, your customers might be well-served by a mention somewhere in the user documentation that users with access to 1P/Mac can use that program to import non-login items from 1PIFs, print keychain items, etc.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that Agile release a special version of 1Password 3.5 that accepts 1P/Win license codes. You could give it a cute name. Maybe 1P/Win for Mac. Actually, that name sucks. But the point is that all of your 1P/Win customers who have access to a Mac running OS X Leopard or better would gain fully-functional 1PIF import TODAY, be able to print and duplicate keychain items TODAY, organize their keychains with labels TODAY, etc. And a handful of your Windows users might even be thrilled to be able to export their keychains to pdb.

Just a thought.

Agile might or might not want to omit browser support in order to keep down the maintenance cost on this special version of 1Password 3.5 and to give your Windows users more of an incentive to buy full Mac licenses. I'm not even going to offer an opinion on that one.

The Windows version and most noticeably the browser extensions are getting poorer each release.

We're sorry you feel that way, Nirix.

Recent releases of the supported browsers, the desire to add more browsers (starting with Safari) to the list, and our own need to standardize the technology in our browser extensions, have required us to work through some radical and rapid changes to the extensions on both Mac and Windows. We'll keep refining them—that's never-ending work!—in the hope that they'll continue to provide good value for your investment, as well as ours.

I agree with the disappointment ... I couple of weeks back I decided to give 1Password a try (someone recommended it) and I saw the $25 (or $29) for Windows ($35-39 family I think) and I got installed the 30 days free. I liked it and put lots of data into it. Two days ago I decided to buy and got the iPhone version first. Today I wanted to get the licence for my desktop and ... $50? Wow!

I would be wasting $10 for the iphone app at this point but I am very tempted to do it just because I think $50 and no discount for phone+desktop is a lot. I can't name many apps at this price. Games are a about that and they pay licence to MS/Nintendo and ... the complexity is not the same with 1Password, I guess you can't argue with that.

Entire books have been written on this but suffice it to say there are a lot of considerations that go into the price. At the moment we think we've picked the right price to sustain the business, ensure customer support can be fully staffed, and allow 1Password to continue to receive active development resources. With that said, we like to have sales so subscribe to our newsletter or follow @1Password on Twitter to be notified of the next one.

No matter what you decide, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to consider 1Password!

I agree with the disappointment ... I couple of weeks back I decided to give 1Password a try (someone recommended it) and I saw the $25 (or $29) for Windows ($35-39 family I think) and I got installed the 30 days free. I liked it and put lots of data into it. Two days ago I decided to buy and got the iPhone version first. Today I wanted to get the licence for my desktop and ... $50? Wow!

I would be wasting $10 for the iphone app at this point but I am very tempted to do it just because I think $50 and no discount for phone+desktop is a lot. I can't name many apps at this price. Games are a about that and they pay licence to MS/Nintendo and ... the complexity is not the same with 1Password, I guess you can't argue with that.

If you're still watching this thread, you might want to check out Agile's Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa sale. (I don't know why Festivus missed the cut.) Not quite as good as last month's Thanksgiving sale, but a 40% discount is nothing to sneeze at.

"It's not how much you pay for something, it's what you get in return."

1Password is a fantastic product! I recently purchased it because one of my three internet username and passwords that I had been using for years and years was compromised. I know I'm not the only one out there that has a handful of username and passwords that you reuse over and over at various websites! The hacker was able to access a couple of my online shopping accounts and had actually ordered something for pickup. Long story short, I was able to thwart the hacker and no harm was done.

1Password gave me the ability to create unique, strong passwords for EACH one of my internet logins (so far up to 80 different sites). Not only is 1Password organizing all this for me, but it's protecting this data with very strong encryption.

I don't know about the rest of you, but having a product that reduces my risk of fraud and makes it easy to manage is a BARGAIN at what they're currently offering!